No. 17 - Windows in the Tunnels

There’s a strange thing that happens to me sometimes, and it’s been happening maybe a little more frequently than it used to in my late 20s.

Running a business, traveling for work, grad school, doing things with family and loved ones, kids’ sporting events, different household schedules… life gets drawn up into this series of tunnels that twist and turn and branch off from one another, and typically the motion through these tunnels is only forward, and it’s fast. Blindingly fast.

But every now and again, you hit a single window or a series of windows in these tunnels. It slows the traverse and causes you to look outward. Time freezes, similar to a photograph, and maybe in that moment of all your senses becoming unencumbered from the perpetual forward motion, you notice things. Mental snapshots during these ebbs.

I’m 34, and I’ve noticed these small moments occurring more and more lately. Like this morning… I was leaving my mother’s house in New Hampshire, and as I walked outside at 4am to get into my Lyft, I heard her say “I love you” from the back porch. I looked back at her standing on the porch, the fluorescent motion-triggered light lighting her in this sort of chiaroscuro way, so I saw her outline and the whiteness of her hair glowing, but not much of her actual features… in that moment where I looked back at her, time froze. I hit a window. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I was still moving forward, with my luggage rolling along the rippled old driveway, but I just looked back at her like that. I told myself to make a mental picture of it. It was as haunting as it was beautiful.

My mom just spent the last 8 weeks in a series of tunnels all her own, as my 98 year old grandmother suffered one health setback after another, until she unfortunately passed away late last week. This series of tunnels my mother’s traveled the last two months were made up of trips to and from hospitals, rehabs, back to hospitals, conversations with specialists, doctors, moments of hope and moments of deep despair, hospice… I can’t help but wonder if she’s been able to hit any of these windows I’m talking about through any of these trying times… and what are those moments that stopped her and made the hair on the back of her neck stand up?

Bubbi + Mom by my Grandfather

Maybe the fact that I’m in a grad program for photography has made me more sensitive to these things, these windows or moments of time. After all, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t always kind of looking for a photograph. And if acknowledging these moments is ultimately a byproduct of the work I’ve been making for myself, who am I to complain about these opportunities to stop and take greater notice of time? I just know that for whatever reason, it keeps happening more frequently.

I hope it continues to.